We decided we should take a trip this week. It’s traditional to take off a couple of weeks in August, and all the tradespeople for the renovation are on vacation, so we figured we should also get out of town for a bit. Plus it’s our anniversary this week (a big one!), and a trip seems like a good way to mark it.
I’m actually writing this from Lake Annecy at the foot of the French Alps. We are staying in a little apartment that’s about a 10 minute walk from the lake. We drove here yesterday (Sunday) — it’s a 7 hour drive from Argentan.
Last night we did some exploring to get a sense of the area and took a quick dip in the 70 degree lake. Today we’ll take a walking tour around Annecy’s Old Town (it has canals and it looks like a smaller Venice!) from our Rick Steve’s book. Then we’ll rent a paddle boat and head out on the lake to swim and picnic. When exploring last night, we noticed lots of the paddle boats have built-in slides — we hope one is available for us.
In the afternoon, we’re planning to hire a driver + motor boat to do some wakeboarding (we know this is last-minute, so we’re crossing our fingers someone is available). We’re also thinking about renting bikes and riding around the lake perimeter.
We’re going to break this trip up into 3 sections. We’re starting with a couple of days at Lake Annecy. Then we’re spending one night at a fancy hotel in Geneva, Switzerland to celebrate our anniversary. Geneva is a 45-minute drive from Lake Annecy.
Then we’re headed to Milan, Italy on Wednesday, with a stop for lunch at Chamonix (and a view of Mont Blanc!) on the way. Milan is a four hour drive from Geneva, and we’ll be there until Saturday. We’re going to do our annual back-to-school dates, go see The Last Supper, and we’ll take a day trip to Lake Como too.
So far, we’ve only stayed in France, but I am curious about what the border crossings will be like now versus pre-Covid. We did lots of research and it sounds like travel among these countries is allowed right now, but we don’t know if our American passports will give us problems (even though we’ve been living in France for a year).
Have you ever been to any of these places? Do you have recommendations or advice for us? We would love that. I’m especially looking for Milan and Lake Como tips because we have the most time there.
P.S. — If you’re craving more content, I typically produce a bunch on Instagram daily. I’m told even if you don’t have an account you can access the content from a browser.
